American Red Cross/New England Violated 1199SEIU Contract By Capping Rate Increases

1199SEIU United Health Care Workers East (Mass) negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with American Red Cross/New England that provided a spectrum of pay rates for employees. The parties eliminated language that created a maximum pay rate. Attorney David Rome convinced an independent arbitrator that the American Red Cross violated the contract by capping pay at maximum rates .

The arbitrator here agreed that the parties previously agreed to cap pay at certain rates, but she also found that the parties later eliminated cap in a subsequent agreement. She declined to interpret the contract to re-insert cap language that was deliberately excluded. The listing of maximum pay rates in the contract did not dissuade her from her conclusion

To remedy the Employer's violation of the contract, the Arbitrator ordered the Employer to restore the portion of the withheld increases to the maximum time allowed under the grievance procedure, rather than to the date the Employer started violating the contract. In other words, if the grievance procedure provides 30 days for grievances, then the remedy can go as far back as 30 days prior to the grievance filing - even if the violation happened months or years earlier than that.

The remedy portion of the award demonstrates that it sometimes can never be too late to fight to enforce a contract.